nixos-zfs-ec2-ami/README.md

NixOS ZFS EC2 AMI Builder

This project publishes a matched EC2 AMI artifact:

• root volume: bootable NixOS EC2 image
• secondary volume: preseeded ZFS pool mounted at /nix

The root snapshot and /nix snapshot are registered together in one AMI block device mapping. Runtime deployments should consume the AMI ID directly and should not independently choose a /nix snapshot.

The image is intentionally project-agnostic. It provides NixOS, ZFS, SSM, flakes, and systemd ordering so the Nix daemon waits for /nix.

Publish

The smallest supported flow is:

cd tofu/ami-builder
nix build .#packages.aarch64-linux.rootImage
./publish-ami.sh --bucket s3://my-vm-import-bucket

publish-ami.sh builds/imports the declarative NixOS root image, boots a temporary seeder instance once to create/export the ZFS /nix volume, creates the final AMI from the stopped instance, and writes artifact.json.

The OpenTofu project in this directory owns only the final AMI registration metadata. Its state is separate from any runtime Quixos deployment state.

Artifact Metadata

The final AMI is tagged with:

• Architecture
• InputHash
• BuilderGitRev
• FlakeLockRev
• RootSnapshotId
• NixSnapshotId
• NixosSystemClosure

Do not deregister the AMI or delete either snapshot while runtime deployments use it.